Chicken-Free Egg Whites
Baking has traditionally made extensive use of egg whites, especially the way they can be beaten into a foam and then set with heat. While I eat eggs, I have a lot of people in my life who avoid them for ethical reasons, and this often limits what I can bake for them. I was very excited to learn, though, that you can now buy extremely realistic vegan egg whites!
EVERY engineered yeast to convert sugar into ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites and the one responsible for most of its culinary function. This kind of fermentation was pioneered for insulin and microbial rennet in the 1980s, but many companies are now applying it to producing all kinds of vitamins, proteins, dyes, and enzymes.
EVERY has been working with commercial customers for several years, but you can now buy it as a shelf stable powder. At $24 for the equivalent of 45 egg whites ($0.53 each) itâs more expensive than buying conventional ($0.21 each) or organic ($0.33) egg whites, but not massively so.
I learned about them from a coworker who made an angel food cake, and Iâve since made flourless chocolate cake and swiss buttercream frosting. It whipped and set just like egg whites; itâs really impressive!
While this is great from a vegan perspective, it wonât help most people who are avoiding eggs for allergy reasons: itâs still ovalbumin. Labeling will generally say something like âcontains: egg allergenâ, and the packaging I bought has the quite wordy âalthough not from eggs, the proteins may cause allergic reactions in certain individuals, especially those sensitive to egg, due to its similarity to real egg.â
Iâm now trying to figure out all the things that this now means I can cook for my oldest (no eggs for moral reasons). And also what sort of places that the ability to make âless watery egg whitesâ, by mixing the powder with less water than normal, could let me do things I couldnât otherwise.
2026, the year vegan baking was solved!
On a more serious note:
âAt $24 for the equivalent of 45 egg whites ($0.53 each) itâs more expensive than buying conventional ($0.21 each) or organic ($0.33) egg whites, but not massively so.â
I would be interested in an econ personâs take on how they predict the price to change over time. Intuitively, I feel that $0.53 is a promising number for a newly launched product, and if demand increases, the price would plummet and make it the de-facto choice for many products that contain egg whites?
I hope they do a good job of marketing it, an increasing number of people are negatively primed towards cultivated products.